I believe one has to escape oneself to discover oneself.

— Rabih Alameddine

I can imagine her memories of the novel, or, more likely, of who she was and how she felt when reading it.

— Rabih Alameddine

I can relate to Marguerite Duras even though I'm not French, nor have I been consumed by love for an East Asian man. I can live inside Alice Munro's skin. But I can't relate to my own mother. My body is full of sentences and moments, my heart resplendent with lovely turns of phrases, but neither is able to be touched by another.

— Rabih Alameddine

I know many sports fans that don't enjoy soccer. The argument is that there's no action, not enough of it.

— Rabih Alameddine

I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it, I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time.

— Rabih Alameddine

I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it, I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time. It is the world outside that box that gives me trouble. I have adapted tamely, though not conventionally, to this visible world, so I can retreat without much inconvenience into my inner world of books.

— Rabih Alameddine

I never wanted to be prominent enough to have enemies.

— Rabih Alameddine

In every evocation of a childhood scene, my stepfather's face is the least detailed, the most out of focus; when I think of him my memory's eyes have cataracts.

— Rabih Alameddine

In Lebanon, there are completely different opinions and values in one country in terms of religion, modernity, tradition, East and West - which allows for a kind of intellectual development not available anywhere else.

— Rabih Alameddine

I realized when it came to men, I did not pick the beautiful or the correct. I picked the wrong one.

— Rabih Alameddine